


nobody, not even the rain

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is so much more than legend and tales and myths: this is them, this is from Merlin to Arthur and from Arthur to Merlin, each as they are in this moment in time, simple and human, broken and bruised and trying. (PG-13, 1,7k)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nobody, not even the rain

**Author's Note:**

> Title goes to awesome La Dispute. Sorry for quoting lyrics before every damn thing I write, but I love it, and I’m quite pleased the lyrics fit this fic. This fic is just me letting my depressive juices transform themselves into words, if you so will. Hah. Idk.

_i know that someday you’ll be sleeping, darling, likely dreaming off the pain.  
i hope you’ll hear me in the streetlight’s humming, softly breathing out your name.   
i know that even with the seams stitched tightly, darling… scars will remain.   
i say we scrape them from each other, darling, and let them wash off in the rain.   
and when they run into the river, oh, no, let the water not complain.  
i swear that even with the distance, slowly wearing at your name:   
your hands still catch the light the right way and   
our hearts still beat the same. _

nobody, not even the rain—la dispute

 

The legends of old tell largely of heroes, and very rarely, to never, do they mention those that helped the hero become a hero. They are minor characters or the hero’s acquaintances, friends. Figures without a great destiny; figures history deems unworthy of oral and written immortalisation. Merlin learns, throughout the course of his life, that this isn’t true at all. He learns that a human never walks the world alone, as lonely as he may think to be. Even though fate may have damned him to bear the burden alone, he never really is.

Merlin grew up with his mother, Hunith. They led a poor life with cold winters and hungry stomachs, and yet what he remembers is this: playing tag in golden fields, corn cobs towering firm and tall around him; the search for berries in the undergrowth, the scent of wet, dirty earth in his nostrils; warm hands in his hair, fingers brushing gently over his brow; his mother’s endless patience as she taught Merlin to read and write. Without these experiences, he wouldn’t be Merlin; without Hunith he wouldn’t be Merlin as he is, the one who knows that it isn’t magic itself that is evil, but the hands that wield it. Without Hunith he would have underestimated the importance of giving strangers a friendly smile, and that to do the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing to do. 

Will is the boy of his childhood that became an outsider along with him. When Merlin thinks of him, he thinks of skinned knees and innumerable attempts at catching fish in a flat river. He thinks of astonished, enchanted brown eyes that watched a dead flower’s wilted petals bloom into yellow again, stretching out towards the sun. When Merlin thinks of him he thinks of the price his gift has demanded and of all those that would still follow.

Many do follow. Merlin watches faces contort in pain, hears children scream and cry and become mute. He dreams of it; it chases him. It hardens him, and he realises that there isn’t always the option of compromising ahead. Fate demands his silence, and so he gives it. Along with his voice he gives Morgana away, wonderful, proud, rebellious Morgana, who was once so kind-hearted. Merlin’s silence distorts her, and still he sees her in his dreams.

Yet, soon, Merlin learns that silence is of no consequence in the end—silence is not equal to demise. Speech, too, signifies demise, because Lancelot’s life wilts, quick and painful, through the uttering of a few words, of a wish. The world doesn’t grieve, because the world doesn’t care. 

Instead, Merlin grieves. And grows.

Many follow as he grows.

And as he grows, his grief grows with him, and his spine begins to bend.

\---

Outside, it’s raining.

Merlin sits in his room, unmoving, and waits. 

The walls are high and claustrophobic, the feeling cutting into his throat like a thin thread of wool. His mouth is dry and his hands are cold. He sits hunched over, back bent, and his shoulders are shaking underneath an invisible weight. It’s a bleak day. The grey sky encompasses the earth like a coffin encompasses a corpse, and with that it tells the end of a tale that no one can recall. The daylight is nothing but an austere imitation of the sun that throws people’s faces into sallow reliefs, reminiscent of water corpses. It’s an ugly day, and Merlin is sitting in his room, unmoving.

Waits for the rain to cease.

\---

There are ancient tales of dragons that burn entire kingdoms with their fiery breath, driven along by greed and the hatred of humans, to spend the last of their days as lonesome shadows on cold heaps of jewellery and gold. Dragons, it is told, are manipulative, sly, avaricious and dangerous gigantic lizards from the firehell, with poisonous yellow eyes.

Merlin’s tale is ancient, and it is also that of a dragon who seeks to burn an entire kingdom with his fiery breath. However, this dragon is driven by other things; he does hate humans, but he wants no gold. He wants to seal the cold-blooded genocide of his own kind with tears and the stench of death and decay in his own nostrils. He wants retribution for having been caged, endless ages long, inside a rocky cavern. This dragon cares nothing for jewellery and gold: his fate is that of leading the last of his race to glory, to save the old ways from fading entirely from the earth. The last of his race is Merlin, a human, a warlock, and Merlin recognises in the yellow eyes of the enormous beast a confidant and listens to the cryptic words of wisdom that will lead his way. Unlike the ancient tales of dragons, this dragon is a friend bowing to a human that speaks his tongue.

Kilgharrah, he is called, and he teaches Merlin all that is gold does not glitter.

And that some things are inevitable, written down in time. 

\---

It’s raining for a long time.

It’s raining for a long time after Uther’s death, and the days are unending—the nights even more so. It’s the end and a beginning both, and Merlin kneels readily before his new king. This is his fate; this is his purpose. This is his breath without which he cannot exist. A new king standing at the beginning of a new age, and Merlin will help him tread the path that has been ordained for him, for the both of them, since before the beginning of time. The prophecies and legends augured him as the Once and Future King, king Arthur; truly regal he is indeed, and Merlin is proud of serving him.

Is prouder still to be his friend, to be the friend of the person behind the crown. 

King Arthur enters the yard to speak to his people, and his presence fills Merlin’s lungs with magic. He hears its rushing in his blood, feels it flowing through his veins, and his pulse is pounding in the tips of his fingers as he touches the inside of his wrist. Merlin’s lifeblood is not organic but other-worldly, is his magic, which is Arthur.

Gathered in the yard is the populace expecting its new king with bated breath. Merlin snaps his head up to see the knights of the round table descend the stairs. Five, six steps later, and there is Arthur, stepping out of the protection of the archway, into the rain.

Waiting to be sullied like Merlin, whom the rain is soaking—through his clothes, his skin and muscles and blood, festering in his bones and weighing them down.

But not Arthur.

Merlin breathes in deeply, feels his chest expand, and his eyes flash, golden.

The clouds thin and disperse, the grey pales, and the sun returns into the canvas of the sky that is slowly becoming a bright, welcoming blue again. The rain ceases.

It is the portrait of the sky from a fairytale, and Merlin’s eyes turn back to Arthur, satisfied at last. He realises it’s not only the sky: it’s Arthur himself that is the portrait from a fairytale. His gate is straight and proud, his shoulders broad under the red cloak, and looking into his eyes is like feeling the vast sky’s freedom stretch out before him, and everything becomes possible and endless. As Arthur lets his gaze wander over his people , Merlin watches his fingers rest securely, firmly on the hilt of his sword—watches, too, the distinct, hard curves of his jaw, a strong but ultimately brittle bone that could so easily be broken. Momentarily, Merlin is overwhelmed with the abysmal, unavoidable knowledge that someone who is predestined to transcend entire ages and legends is so agonisingly ephemeral after all. 

There is gust of wind, light, that pushes Arthur’s hair onto his forehead, into his eyes. Merlin watches his small smile, so brief, and _aches_. 

Already is Arthur, now king, a little more serious, stiller, more mature—more remote. Merlin can still hear the echo of the prince’s barking laughter as he ridiculed Merlin’s non-existing hunting skill, as if it were yesterday. But it’s not, never will be again.

He falls into a reverent bow as Arthur approaches him. His king: his serious, still, mature, remote king. He swallows hard, and without thinking, eyes fixed onto the hard line of Arthur’s mouth, Merlin feels his fingers spread, feels the energy gather and centre, and his eyes flash golden another time from underneath his fringe, driven headlong by a visceral need.

Another gust of wind, stronger and longer, pushes Arthur’s hair onto his forehead, into his eyes again—but even as Arthur blinks against it, he cannot shake it off. It annoys him so much that he destroys the regalness he represents in this moment by grimacing and beginning to surreptitiously blow air upwards in a futile attempt at blowing the hair from his face.

The wind insists, and when Arthur catches Merlin’s eyes, he, suddenly, unabashedly, beautifully, breaks out into a wide smile that stretches into a grin and then a laugh as he reaches upwards to take off the crown, to smooth his hair back from his forehead against the rebellious wind.

In this moment, Merlin knows—that whatever people from his past died, that whatever people from the present and future will die still; that whatever fate is preordained for the man before him, for himself, for the both of them; that however much his shoulders may ache with the weight of silence and loss… he knows, that however ephemeral each of them may be at last, until the end of his days it will be his duty and honour to make Arthur smile, to make him laugh.

It is his duty and honour until the end of his days. It is something intensely private; this is not from a legendary warlock to a legendary king.

This is so much more than legend and tales and myths: this is them, this is from Merlin to Arthur and from Arthur to Merlin, each as they are in this moment in time, simple and human, broken and bruised and trying.

Because the simple wonder of Arthur’s curved lips—his fluttering eyelashes—the specific timbre in his voice upon waking up—the degree of pressure he uses with his hand to the back of Merlin’s neck—the simple wonder of Arthur’s breathing— _Arthur_ , the wonder of Arthur himself is the magic and love that blooms within Merlin’s chest, becomes everything forever.


End file.
